In an electrophotographic image forming apparatus, ozone and odor components may be generated inside an apparatus body during image formation. Ozone may be generated inside the apparatus body when electricity is discharged to form an image, for example, when a photosensitive member is charged by a charger. Odor components include volatile organic compounds, hereinafter referred to as VOCs. The VOCs may be generated inside the apparatus body when a recording medium having an image thereon is fixed by heat. The image forming apparatus needs to remove ozone and odor components generated during image formation and eject them outside the apparatus body.
To remove ozone and odor components from the apparatus body, the image forming apparatus is configured to merge air including ozone generated around the charger and air including VOCs generated around a fixing unit into a common path and to eject the merged air outside the apparatus body. With this configuration, the image forming apparatus ejects the air through a VOC oxidation catalyst filter or an ozone filter and uses the ozone as an oxidizing agent, thereby removing the ozone and VOCs from the air ejected outside the apparatus body.
The image forming apparatus removes ozone and VOCs mainly through the VOC oxidation catalyst filter and the ozone filter, and additionally uses the ozone as the oxidizing agent. In other words, the image forming apparatus is not provided with a structure to improve the advantages of ozone as the oxidation agent.